Ciao Italy! Pt Tre

8th August, thats our wedding anniversery and the whole reason we went on this nice little trip to Italy. Unfortunately the 8th was a Sunday and we found out nothing would be open, so we decided to go and have a nice picnic in the Tuscan country side.

We figured it would be easy to find a nice spot but it was a lot harder than we imagened. All the land is of course farm land or vineyards.... so that would be tresspassing. However as we were driving around Fee spotted a 'For sale' sign at an old farm house, so we parked up, grab our blanket and went for a picnic.

There it is, the drive way was very long... it took us about 10min to walk to the house.

I would say this is a cute old well, but after watching *'The Ring' we all know wells are not cute.

It was a very big farm house and you could see lots of work had been done to it over the years. I don't know how long it had been standing empty for.

A very rare pic of me in the sun.... I had factor 50 sunblock on (its made for goths) so don't worry I didn't get a tan.

Our little picnic, we had some nice bread, cheese, ham, olives and a small bottle of wine. Plus, it was all local...Yum!

Theses Mrs Groves looking pretty as always..... I had obviously told one of my very funny jokes at this point.

It wasn't fancy but we had a nice time.

We kindly asked a passing Grasshopper to take a nice pic of us.

After our yummy lunch we lazed around and enjoyed the peace and quite. Once our food had settled we went exploring to see what we could find.

Another rare picture of me..... this time smiling..... well kind of.

Fee skipping off into the sunset.

Seems local farmers still use the farm house but just for storage.

Inside was rather creepy so we stayed out.

We had a super cool day on our little adventure and our picnic really filled us up. So much so that this was our dinner:

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*the Japanese original, not the American 'we only re-made it because Americans wont watch foreign films' re-make.

Ciao Italy! Pt Due

After Florence the next 'must see place' is Pisa....and to marvel at it's badly built tower. So we jumped into the car and zoomed down there, we parked on the edge of town and walked in as we guessed it would be super busy in town. To our surprise we found a rather cool little park on the way there...

You would be forgiven for thinking this was a photo of Southern California.

"Where the hell is New Kids On The Block?"

Soaking up the rays in California.... I mean Italy.... Honest.

So we walked though some small streets and simply followed all the crowds of German, Dutch, French and American tourists going to the way to the tower....

"Looks fine to me... what's all the fuss about?"

"Ooooohh... now I see it"

Never hire an Italian builder simply because his gorgeous.

There was A LOT of this going on..... I cant stand this kind of thing.*

Fee made a new friend..... looked kind of dangerous to me.

Captured this guy buzzing around, his wings were super fast like a Humming Bird's.

So after seeing Italy's monument to 'shoddy building work' we got some food and headed home. Don't get me wrong, the tower and the area around it is beautiful but sadly Pisa is a real tourist trap with people selling fake watches and all sorts of tat everywhere. Go there, have a quick look at the tower then move on.... that's our advice.

For the next day we got bored of the city's and hit the country roads to find some cute towns and some wine. Apparently red wine is popular over here... who knew?!

This was my view for a large part of the trip.

There's our little Fiat Panda or 'red Cat' as we called him. Red Cat is what Pandas (real ones not the car) are called in Chinese.... go figure.

Yum yum, we had some tasty wine and picked up a good bottle to bring home.

Pretty water feature at the vineyard.

Mrs Groves pondering on the big questions in life, like "how much red wine can I drink AND still drive?"

I have no idea what the hell those things are?

*Fee and me took loads of pic with people doing the silly 'i'm holding up the tower pose!' that i'll do a post just for that.

Sibling violence.

Saw this and it reminded me of when me and my brother had pillow fights....sadly I was the younger one.

Ciao Italy! Pt Uno

So here we are, the first of a few instalments about our recent trip to Italy. There are loads of pics but I will try to 'stream-line' it a little for you.

We arrived at our hotel rather late on the first night, so we didn't go far for dinner (next door in fact) and got a good nights sleep. Our first full day was spent in Florence...... We parked on the out-skirts of town and walked in. On the way we came across a cool flea-market that was packed with cool stuff. Fee even managed to pick up some retro style glasses frames that she plans to get lenses for.

Almost every shop was like this, it would have taken days to go though it all.

There she is, the Duomo! It's an amazingly detailed building.

That be a lot of stone and marble.

As you can see from the pic the crowds were big so we did not get to go inside, you can also see the sky turning a rather evil looking shade of grey.

Moments after this picture was taken the sky's opened and it rain down hard...not only that but it also started to hailed! Fee and me did manage to jump into the 'OPA', this was the little museum just opposite the Duomo. It was interesting but I don't think we would have gone in if it had not been raining.

Do you see what they did there?...very smart.

There was some rather scary stuff in there like this guy...ekk!

He seemed to be in a better mood.

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Spooky eyes!

"Hmmmm...now where should I put the Starbucks?"

Once the weather eased up a little we ran to a local place for some food and drink. By the time we finished the sky had stopped pouring down. We went for a little walk back to the car and decided to head up to a church up on the peak of Florence.

Spotted this on the way...seems Jesus died for our sin's and to warn us not to go down dead-ends.

Pretty amazing view from up there.

Loving the look!

Cute!

"I see you.."

Very pretty Church on the peak.

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Again, this building was full of detail and reminded Fee and me of temples we saw back in China.

For god's sake David...put some pants on!

Good to be home...

Hey boys and girls!

Just to let you know i'm back from my trip to Italy and enjoying being home. The trip was great (so expect pics) but the journey home was a bit draining to say the least....so Fee and me are enjoying the comforts of home and chilling.

Keep your eyes peeled for Italy post soon!

Peace.

Off again!

Hey peeps!

Just so you all know, Fee and me are off to Italy tomorrow morning for a week of food, food and wine.... plus food. Not sure what the internet situation will be like but I hope to see you all soon. Peace!

OH MY GOD!!

It looks like a foot!

The Elf graduates..Pt2

After the ceremony we all had a rest and shower back at the hotel (Dad and Spencer waited for us in the pub) before we met up for dinner and drinks.

Cool little slider sign to tell the hotel owners if you were in or out....tonight we were definitely out!

The first stop was a nice Italian restaurant called 'Martinis', the food was nice (I had risotto and cheese cake....not at the same time) and we all toasted to Abi's future success.

Spencer looking a little worried here....I think the beer was taking a more than 2min to arrive! HELP!

Micheal was pleased to see the arrival of 'chili oil'...he is a big fan of spicy food.

After dinner we took our full belly's out for some fresh air and to look for a nice place to get a drink. We found a cool bar (can remember the name, sorry) and plotted up for a a drink or two...or three...or six!

Cool Dad!

At one point in the night he was talking about going to a rave or a foam party...wtf?!

The girls talking about...cocktails?...shoes?...men?..shopping?...take your pick.

Some crazy but tasty cocktails were had...yum yum!

"....and that's how you punch a guy in face"

Micheal realising he does not like Jagermeister, and after washing it down with a Red Bull he soon realised he didn't like that!

Micheal is a rather jolly guy....

...even in close up, just look how happy he is.

So once the bar closed we all said out goodbyes and set off back to out hotels. We had a flight to catch so we wanted a decent nights sleep before the stress of traveling home. We got back in once piece but it was a long day of trains and planes. When the hell are the going to get teleporting up and running!!!